


apogeic

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Established Relationship, Happy, Kissing, M/M, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-07-29 21:11:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7699759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke returns to Bespin after a long time away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	apogeic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



“Well,” Lando says, voice raised to carry, grinning at Luke from across the bridge connecting the landing pad to Cloud City proper. The ever-present wind whips around Lando’s legs and gives flicking, flapping life to his cape, its pale silk catching the pure sunlight overhead. The way it glints, so familiar and welcome, makes something inside Luke relax. Finally. For the first time in far, far too long. The wind, in addition to playing havoc with Lando’s clothing, urges Luke forward with a persistent nudge at his shoulder blades. He isn’t walking fast enough, he supposes, and finds it easy enough to rectify that by lengthening his stride as Lando continues to speak. “Jedi training doesn’t seem to have hurt you any.”

Luke’s eyes roll skyward, his cheeks warming with embarrassment and an unbecoming vanity, to scan the warm pink and orange atmosphere of Bespin. It’s a sight that never fails to take Luke’s breath from him. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times he comes back to it.

He’s seen a lot of skies in his travels. A lot of them. And not a single one compares. Not even the twin sunsets outside the homestead back on Tatooine, the one part of the day he’d ever seen something more in the place than sand and desperation, come close.

One day, when he’s feeling generous, he’ll tell Lando as much.

He saves his retort—it won’t be a good one anyway—until that blasted, relentless wind can no longer swallow it up and carry it away. He saves it until he can discern the sparkle of mischief in Lando’s eyes and the always deepening smile lines around his mouth. He saves it because patience is a thing he’s cultivated and the length of a moment’s inaction no longer hurts him the way it used to. “How long have you been sitting on that one?” Luke asks, one corner of his mouth lifting in amusement. Weariness throbs beneath his skin in time with his heart and dissipates with each beat. The seconds stretch out, tiredness replaced with something else. He doesn’t know what to call it, but it turns keeping still into a trial, especially once he comes to a stop within an arm’s length of Lando.

“How long have you been gone?” Lando asks, delicate, yet so much more than that, too. Given enough time, Luke could tease out each thread of emotion he senses in the answer, make sense of them through meditation, the Force his companion in unraveling it all.

It is, however, a rhetorical question and requires no such study. Luke would learn nothing new and they both know the answer anyway: far too long this time. And far too long every time. So long that time and distance has frayed the edges of Luke’s memories, blurred knowledge Luke has held dear since at least Endor—if not before. All of it comes back now, a flood of sharp images that don’t quite make Luke’s eyes sting, though it’s a near thing. How had he managed to so thoroughly divorce himself from the tight twist of his stomach upon seeing Lando again? Because he is viciously reminded of it now. It would double him over if he let it.

 _Not anymore,_ he thinks. _It won’t have to._

“I missed you,” Luke says, choosing the honest route. For expediency as much as anything. He reaches for Lando’s wrist, can’t help it now, wraps his fingers around soft skin and finds Lando’s pulse point. easy as anything. It flutters violently under Luke’s fingers, but Lando doesn’t pull away, doesn’t demand privacy for his body’s reaction to Luke’s touch. Whether it’s because he’s so much more attuned to the Force now or simply because he knows Lando so well, he sees everything in Lando’s eyes. It turns out the Force is unnecessary for some things.

(He’d forgotten the precise shade of them, that information lost in the blue of too-short holocalls. Another regret on an already long list of them.)

And because Lando’s a better man than Luke deserves most of the time, he sees only joy there, joy and relief and warm welcome. “Why don’t we head inside?” he asks, sweeping his free hand out, gesturing vaguely at the nearby door as he strides toward it expecting Luke to follow.

“Lando,” Luke says, tugging at the wrist still caught in his grip. He doesn’t budge and instead uses Lando’s momentum against him, pulling him back. Pulling him close. He’s too graceful to lose his balance, but Luke is braced just in case and looks up, pleased to see the surprised amusement that settles on Lando’s face. Lando always did like surprises. And Luke has always reveled in giving them to Lando, small though they tend to be with Lando, who’s notoriously good at guessing the truth of things and imagining all the ways a scenario might go. Even a Jedi would have a hard time keeping up with that. But this time… maybe this time, he’s got one over on Lando. Gripping Lando’s shoulders, the thin, sleek weave of his cape’s fabric cool beneath his hands, he presses his lips against Lando’s.

This, at least, he remembers with perfect clarity, having thought of it so much while he’d been away. The measured, thorough slide of Lando’s mouth against his own, the way Lando’s fingers tighten on his hips—always his hips, thumbs pressed against bone as he pulls Luke closer, no matter what. Luke leans up, hands sliding to rest on Lando’s jaw, his fingers catching in Lando’s hairline to pull Lando down just that little bit more to meet him. They could have rehearsed this for how well it goes. No matter how long Luke is gone, this never seems to change.

When they part, far too quickly for Luke’s liking, Luke can’t hold back a smile, his forehead pressing against Lando’s until they give back a little bit of the space they’ve taken from one another. Not much admittedly. But some. Enough that they’re not breathing the same air anymore.

Lando turns his head, coughs into his fist. “Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t invite the ground crew out with me.”

“Guess so.” Luke snakes his arm around Lando’s waist, destroying the fall of Lando’s cape across his shoulders. Not that he seems to mind all that much, lifting his own arm to curve around Luke’s shoulder. The weight of it settles warm across the back of Luke’s neck. Comforting.

This is his favorite part of coming home.

“You were saying something about heading inside?” Luke prompts, the tone and speed of his words giving him away completely, too rushed to be anything other than eager.

Word of what he’s done and who he is has trickled out, tales from his Rebellion comrades and Alliance leadership alike probably. No one can resist a good story and he can’t say he hasn’t been a part of a big one. He should’ve expected his name would get out there. Not many people at the top of the Rebellion’s leadership has escaped that notoriety. Luke has been no different. It’s helped in some ways—people are eager to offer information and shelter to war heroes—but in others…

It’s a relief to shed the suffocating layers of expectation that cling to him while he’s out there. Here, he doesn’t have to be the aloof, mysterious Jedi. He is neither feared nor revered for his power. Instead, he is Luke Skywalker, who met Lando Calrissian at his lowest moment and together they built something from that.

Together. Luke smiles even wider. He likes the sound of that.

“Did I?” Lando replies, lofty and grandiose, urging Luke to turn his head with a brush of his fingertip against Luke’s chin. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he adds, bending to take another kiss. “I was momentarily distracted.”

Leaning against Lando, Luke elbows him in the side, connecting solidly if painlessly. Huffing as dramatically as possible, Lando laughs and shoves back lightly, pushing Luke toward the door. Their feet match pace immediately, Luke’s feet finding the correct rhythm without hesitation, their steps smoothing out until they move almost as one person. Another thing he hasn’t forgotten, thank the Force, this small indication that they’re in this together. A silly proof as far as such things are concerned, but one Luke finds reassuring.

“I missed you, too, you know,” Lando says, voice barely audible over the harsh whoosh of the door now opening for them. “How long do you think you’ll be back this time?”

“A while,” he admits, shaking his hair out of his eyes. Later, he’ll tell Lando about Lor San Tekka and the Church of the Force. Explain the whole thing. How they search for relics and answers with a verve Luke cannot match and have done so for years, long before Luke started his own quest. They’ve already found more than Luke could ever have imagined. They _know_ so much more. And he’s found them despite the odds being so minuscule as to be miraculous. “I’ve got some help now. I won’t have to go so often. Or be gone as long.” 

He doesn’t have to do it alone.

And at this rate, Luke might actually make something of the Jedi again.

It is a relief and a blessing and Luke doesn’t intend to take it for granted.

But the explanation will hold for now.

Lando’s gait shifts, throwing Luke’s off, too. He turns and crowds Luke against the inside of the door. Peering down at Luke, eyes flitting back and forth as he searches Luke’s face, he doesn’t quite smile, doesn’t quite frown. He is, Luke thinks, grave with hope. Luke hates that he’s the one who’s put that expression on Lando’s face. “You’re serious?”

“I am.” _I’ll make it up to you._

“Why?” His voice takes on a ponderous quality. “What you’re doing is important.”

“Yes, it is. But this,” Luke says, tapping at Lando’s chest with his knuckles, “is important, too.”

Lando catches Luke’s hand in his, squeezing almost to the point of discomfort. “Today’s my lucky day, huh?” he asks, like he can’t quite believe it, but he really, really wants to.

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s mine,” Luke says, squeezing back just as hard. After a moment, he adds, elated to be saying it at all, “Let’s go home.”

After months, _years_ , it’s finally true.


End file.
